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“Thank you,” I say regardless of the reason for his compliment. “Right back at ya.”
This just got awkward.
“Fair warning, Harper can be a handful,” Angie speaks up, pushing herself off the counter. “I’ll be here to help you with her though. You just can’t take anything she says to you personally. She can come across a little rude sometimes, but she’s not that bad.”
“Yeah, something like that,” Wade grumbles, rolling his eyes as he slides onto a bar stool. “How’s Dad feeling this morning?”
“He’s still sleeping, and you’re not going to catch me waking him up.” Angie laughs with a shrug. “Do you want something to drink or maybe some breakfast, Callie? I know you’ve been busy with your writing, and of course, you can eat or drink anything in the house, I just thought I’d offer.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling nothing but gratitude for Wade’s mom. “I can get myself a glass of water though.”
“I’ll get it for you!” Wade perks up, quickly sliding off the stool he had just sat on. “You’ve been really busy working, let me do some work for you.”
Surprise fills my chest at the same time that it flashes across Angie’s face. “That’s sweet of you.”
“Not as sweet as you.” Wade shoots me a wink across the kitchen as he fills a glass with ice and water and slides it across the bar to me. “Besides, I’m going to owe you way more than water after you’re forced to spend the afternoon with Harper.”
“Just don’t say that in front of her,” Angie warns him, giving him a look that makes me think he’s most likely said a lot worse. “She’s Cooper’s mother, and even though we all question the why behind a lot of the things she does and says, we just have to deal with it.”
“I know,” Wade says with a sigh. “It’s all going to be fine. I’m not going to smart off—though it will be hard.”
“It’s hard for all of us,” Angie adds with a nervous laugh. “But anyway, it’s going to be fine. I guarantee it.”
A chime rings through the house only seconds later, and Angie heads off to the door, leaving me there with Wade.
Wade turns to me, everything about him reassuring. “Thanks for being here. If at any point this gets to be too much, just pull me to the side and I’ll come up with an excuse for you to leave, okay?”
“You’re making it sound like this is going to be terrible.” I force a laugh, though there’s not much humor in it.
Before Wade can say anything else, I hear the clicking of shoes, and in walks a tall, thin, model-gorgeous woman.
She looks like she walked straight off a runway in New York City or L.A. Her winged eyeliner is perfect, too.
“Hi Wade,” she says, her tone less than pleasant as she pushes some of her blonde hair behind her ear. “You look well, much better than you did in the videos I sent to my attorney.”
Yikes.
Wade just smiles, and I’m trying my hardest to hide my shock—while also wondering if he’s even going to introduce me. The tension in this room is rising quicker than my pulse.
“Daddy!” a sweet little voice calls from behind Harper.
“Hey buddy,” Wade greets Cooper, sweeping the cute little dark-headed boy into his arms and giving him a hug. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he says, squeezing his arms around his neck.
I’m still standing here awkwardly, holding my glass of ice water, but finally understanding exactly what Wade was saying when he mentioned me being the opposite of the women he’s been with.
“This is Callie,” Wade suddenly says, gesturing back to me. “She’s my friend.”
Harper looks past Wade, as if she didn’t even notice I was ever standing here. “This is your fiancée?”
“Yeah,” Wade answers, his voice growing a little sour as Angie raises her eyebrows at all of us. “Callie, this is Harper, and this,” he says as he tickles Cooper, “this is Coop.”
“Nice to meet you both,” I choke out, forcing a nervous smile as Harper is clearly scrutinizing everything about me.
This is gonna be fun.
Chapter Twenty-One
